Amazing topographical light paintings done with a single LED

You can do a lot of things with long exposure photos, but photographer Janne Parviainen might have come up with one of the coolest concepts so far. With a single LED lamp, Parviainen traces all the surfaces in a shot to make a kind of 3D topographical map of the scene. It’s awesome.

The settings for the images are intentionally normal — bland even. Someone lying in bed, two figures sitting at a table, or a person standing at the top of a staircase. When the exposure starts, Parviainen traces all the surfaces he can spot in the frame. In many places, you can track the trail of the LED as it swirls and swoops around corners.

The entire process can take as long as 30 minutes, but any humans being used can move after their section of the image is completed. The goal with light painting is to do everything in one take, and present the finished product direct from the camera. None of Parviainen’s shots are post-processed in any way.

These full light mapped images are a new endeavor for Parviainen, who was previously making some waves by painting spectral neon skeletons into otherwise straightforward settings. These new light painting photos are really an evolution of that. Parviainen is selling prints of his light paintings in various sizes, as well as wallpaper downloads.